Distance. 85km (wow, most yet).
Total. 256km
Firstly, I must show you the house we stayed in last night.
Quite a brave colour! I think the Thai lady only rented out two rooms. It was nice inside. Very clean and comfy bed. The breakfast was good, fresh water melon, pineapple and plenty of meats and bread. We managed to sneak away a nice sandwich for later.
We knew we had a longer cycling day today and we got an early start at 8.15am. Yes, that early! Even so, the cycling was especially pleasant. We moved onto the Rhein proper as we left the Bodensee. There were no more older cyclists with electric bikes and the cycle tracks were pretty much left for our sole use. Our first stop was at the beautiful old town of Stein-am-Rhein.
We have been cris-crossing the Swiss/German border all day, probably about 5 times. We never saw a customs official once....Switzerland is not in the EU or in the customs union but we seem to be quibbling a great deal with the EU about our Irish backstop.....what is the arrangement here? Sorry for the politics.
Stein-am-Rhein is soooo pretty....
The town has buildings that are painted with murals from top to bottom. The pictures do not do it justice...every street looked untouched for 300 years or more. The small market was pleasant and we were tempted to buy coffee and a plum cake to share from a homemade bakery stall that was collecting money for children in Kosovo, at least that’s what we gleaned from the information we saw....it might actually be the German NSPCC?
We followed the Rhein and came to the lovely wooden bridge at Gailingen....we crossed the bridge to the Swiss side and the town of Diessenhafen. The bridge was the highlight.
Our next port of call was Schaffhausen. The biggest town our our ride today. The Schloß was covered in scaffold but the Main Street was pretty and I was ‘forced’ to buy a treat.....you will see later.
Our lunch destination was the Rheinfall, which is the largest waterfall (by volume of water - does that mean quantity of water or by noise?) in Continental Europe. It was quite a tourist destination but lovely all the same.
We had lunch here too.....Richard had his treat....
It was his bratwurst. The first German sausage of the trip.
We cycled away from the Rhein for a while and, shock, horror...we had to cycle up some hills. In actual fact we did two more than necessary because I took wrong turnings. It is a bit of a struggle with the panniers on....it didn’t help either with extra luggage...
Who sneaked that in? We had to carry extra provisions because we knew that we were staying in a village with little or no facilities. It turned out there were no facilities at all in Lienheim. We had purchased a pre-prepared salad each and a strawberry rice pudding.
Our room is clean and modern, with en-suite facilities, for a change. Janice has kindly done our clothes washing....it was due! I may have a new outfit on tomorrow. Don’t get excited.
We took our food provisions (with sporks - an essential item for travelling cyclists) to a local orchard and sat on the grass to dine in the evening sunshine. Washed down with a cheeky Riesling. We don’t need posh dining on a Saturday night. We are ticking off German culinary experiences as we travel. I think I forgot to mention a pretzel we have had already but we are still waiting for a schnitzel!
Mind where you put those bratwurst... Looks like a weapon! 😁
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